


I Swear

by TheSaddleman



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Humour, Semi-Crack, Swearing, communication between friends, lots of swearing, other naughty words, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-18 05:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8150134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSaddleman/pseuds/TheSaddleman
Summary: Today's dilemma for the Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald: why can't they stop swearing at one another?





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains a lot of swearing (well, not a huge amount but more than I usually write), but there's a reason for it. Nonetheless, fair warning for those who may be offended by salty language.
> 
> This semi-crack story, written while in a silly mood, is set in Series 9 sometime after The Girl Who Died. It was inspired by a subtitling error on North American versions of the Complete Ninth Series DVD and Blu-ray sets that made the Doctor swear during an inappropriate scene. Learn more about this weird situation at http://www.cultbox.co.uk/news/headlines/doctor-who-season-9-subtitle-error-has-peter-capaldi-saying-oh-sht

“Oh, shit,” the Doctor exclaimed jubilantly, with a big smile.

Clara nearly spat out her coffee. “Excuse me?”

“I said, ‘How’s the coffee?’ It’s a special brew Winston Churchill developed. Good, isn’t it?” He pointed at the cup.

“Yes it is, but that’s not what you just said to me.”

“What did I say?”

“‘How’s the coffee?’” Clara said.

“That’s what I said.”

Clara’s eyes widened. “No, no, no! You didn’t. I didn’t mean to say that. You swore at me. You said, ‘How’s the coffee?’” Now she looked confused. What was wrong with her mouth? She was trying to say, “Oh, shit.” True, she didn’t swear very much at the best of times and, when she attended teaching school, she’d been trained to avoid strong swearing altogether, even in private, in order to develop good classroom etiquette—and the Doctor didn’t even like it when she said “bloody”—so swearing didn’t come as easily as it used to. But she swore (if you will pardon the expression) that she’d said, “shit,” not “how’s the coffee?”

“Why, is ‘How’s the coffee?’ a new swear now? You humans are always coming up with new ways to offend each other,” the Doctor said.

“Kiss my ass, _kono yarou_.” Clara’s wide eyes gazed at the Doctor as if she had said something completely innocuous.

“Now, Clara, if you’re going to be like that, I’m not taking you to see the biggest catastrofuck in the galaxy.”

“There!” She pointed at the Doctor. “You just swore at me again!”

“No I did not. You just swore at _me_.”

“No, you did!”—her voice was approaching I-am-not-a-control-freak! calibre—“You just said you were going to take me to the biggest carnival in the …” She didn’t even bother finishing that sentence. She hadn’t tried to say “carnival.” 

“Are you alright, scullion?”

Scullion? “I don’t know. You seriously didn’t hear yourself swear at me or call me a name just now, dillweed?”

“I don’t even know what a Doctor … is …” OK, that as definitely not what the Doctor had heard or tried to say, either. He had not heard Clara say his own name. He heard her say … something else. “Say my name.”

“You’re the dillweed.”

“Now, swear at me,” the Doctor said.

“Haven’t you heard enough?” Clara replied.

“No, just think of a proper swear word and say it. Wait, before you do, hand me that asswipe.”

“Hand me that _what_?” 

“Asswipe! Asswipe!” Clara just shrugged, beyond shocked now. “Here, let me,” the Doctor said as he reached into her purse and extracted her mobile. He activated the camera, though he just needed the audio so he didn’t bother aiming it at her. “Now, swear at me. Make it a good one.”

And so Clara swore at the Doctor, choosing the four-letter word that rhymed with duck. She didn’t really have to play-act when she said it, either. This was getting annoying.

The Doctor, however, didn’t look particularly shocked at what he heard. He tapped Stop on the recording and played it back.

“ _Now, swear at me. Make it a good one,_ ” the Doctor’s voice played back.

“ _Flowers,_ ” came Clara’s reply.

The two gave each other a puzzled look. The Doctor started the phone recording again. “Tell me exactly what you said after I asked you, ‘Why would I do that?’”

“Uh, ‘Kiss my ass, _kono yarou_?’” the Doctor heard. What Clara really said was: _I heard you say something different._

When the second recording was played back, Clara started to laugh, in spite of herself. Okay, now their predicament was graduating from annoying to silly.

“What did I just say?” Clara said, not recognizing the second phrase at all.

The Doctor said, “Japanese insult, basically a more rude version of calling someone an idiot.” At least that’s what the Doctor _thought_ he had said. Clara and her cocked eyebrow suggested she had heard something else entirely.

“They have a phrase for calling someone a ‘fart catcher?’” she inquired.

The Doctor put on an exasperated look. “That’s not what I … forget it. And it’s the British who use that term, not the Japanese.”

Clara laughed. “What?”

“Personal servant. Don’t tell Strax; he’d probably raze half of London.”

“Well, the good news is we can’t both have developed sudden-onset rank pisser if we’re both doing it,” Clara said.

The Doctor winced. “Please tell me you meant to say ‘Tourette syndrome.’”

“Yes, rank pisser. Oh, God. What did you hear?”

“You don’t want to know. Anyway, it’s not Tourette’s because that’s a neuropsychiatric disorder that makes you swear and utter other things whether you want to speak or not. With us it seems to be more like a form of aphasia, with the swearing or other stuff replacing certain words or meanings. Except without the brain damage part. At least I think there’s no ... We haven’t injured our heads and forgotten about it, have we?” The Doctor actually looked concerned for a moment.

“I don’t think so. What’s causing it?”

“I think the TARDIS’ translation circuits are shitting themselves.”

“I’m sure they are.” Clara couldn’t stop the smile. This was getting funny, especially hearing the Doctor swearing with his Scottish accent.

The Doctor got the hint. He pointed at the TARDIS console and then mimed an explosion. Which of course is universal for, “The TARDIS’ translation circuits have crashed and need to be reset.”

The Doctor pointed to a toolbox that he’d left haphazardly lying about. “Grab me the three-pronged dildo, if you don’t mind, scullion.”

Clara laughed. “Oh, my, you’ve been holding out on me.”

The Doctor looked more annoyed than amused. “Prongs. Three. Dildo.”

“Sounds like a party,” Clara mumbled. The “three-prongs” part at least allowed Clara to narrow things down quickly; to her relief, the object in question looked like a cross between a spanner and one of those big metal forks used for roasting hot dogs over a campfire, rather than a you-know-what, though Clara couldn’t help but imagine that on some far-off world some creature with two heads was probably getting their jollies with something that looked just like this.

“Ah, the dildo!” the Doctor said. By this time, Clara had tears streaming from her eyes.

“Please stop saying that!” she said through laughter. 

“This isn’t funny, scullion! This is bugfuck! Oh, suit yourself.” By this time, Clara was literally on the floor laughing.

“Scullion!” she laughed even harder. Trust the Doctor to use a term like that!

“Are you just going to sit on the floor, laughing at me?”

Clara could only nod and give a _carry on_ wave of her hand. She really didn’t trust herself to speak right now, anyway.

The Doctor set to work. A few crackles of electricity later, the lights in the TARDIS dimmed slightly, just for a moment. The cloister bell bonged once, reminding Clara of the chime of a Mac rebooting.

“Hard reboot,” the Doctor explained as he climbed up from under the console. “Now, swear at me.”

“Screw you?”

“Same to you,” the Doctor said with a smile.

“Your turn,” Clara said. She picked up her mobile. “And this is…”

“Your phone?” Clara nodded. “Okay, I think we’re back in business.”

“So, Doctor,”—the Doctor, to his relief, heard Clara’s voice say his proper name again—“I know a bit about how the TARDIS’ translation thing works. But I always thought it only worked with other people, aliens we meet. Does this mean we’ve never actually spoken to each other in English? You’ve been speaking Gallifreyan and the TARDIS has been translating for you? And you haven’t been hearing the real me at all, either? Not even right now?”

“Would that make a difference?”

Clara paused for a moment. What if none of it was real? “Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?” What he said to her in the Viking village when he talked about his fear of losing her? Dammit, did he actually hear the _real_ her when she let slip about how she felt about him (well, sort of) at The Drum? She’d said, “You’ve made yourself essential to me,” but did he really hear that himself? Was any of it real or had it always been just some sophisticated computer program filling in the blanks? Even back in the bow-tie days?

She wanted honesty. “Yes, Doctor. I want to know if I’ve been hearing the real you all this time. That you’ve been hearing the real _me_ all this time.”

The Doctor looked her in the eye and dipped under the console again and flipped the lever. The lights in the console room dimmed slightly once again.

The Doctor stood up and motioned to Clara, silently: _after you_.

“Doctor, do you understand me? The real me?”

The Doctor took a deep breath, looked her in the eyes again and said, gently, “ _Du har vackra ögon._ ”

“I don’t understand you,” Clara said softly as she felt her heart sank. So it had never been the real him, just the TARDIS speaking on his behalf. He didn’t even sound Scottish. But ... hold on a tic, it still sounded familiar. Something in the accent … “Wait a second. Was that _Swedish_?”

“ _Ja_ ,” said the Doctor. Then he started to laugh before, in his very own Scottish-accented voice, the same one she’d had once compared to mood lighting: “Clara, I learned most of Earth’s languages before I ever set foot there. I’ve always just been me and I’ve always ever just heard the real you. Do you really think I’d want to deprive you of these lovely earthy tones?”

“But how did the TARDIS mess us up?” Clara asked as the Doctor re-rebooted the translation matrix.

“Anyone who travels aboard her develops a bit of a psychic link to the old girl; you understand that better than most,” the Doctor said, straightening up again as the cloister bell did its Mac chime impersonation. He snapped his fingers in demonstration and the TARDIS doors opened; it was an ability the TARDIS had bestowed upon only three individuals—himself, River Song and Clara. Another click and the doors closed. “When the translation matrix crashed, it sent out random psychic signals and messed us up, as you put it. You and I both started saying and hearing the wrong words. If I hadn’t rebooted everything, it might have gotten to the point where we’d have been unable to properly carry on a conversation without sounding like we’d walked into the recording session for ‘Ullo John, Got a New Motor? Part 4’ by Alexei Sayle. But everything should be fine now.”

“Why have us swear and call each other names?”

“Not sure. Maybe the matrix grabbed onto words and phrases we would never actually imagine saying to one another?”

Clara laughed. “Not swearing at you is sometimes a daily struggle!”

“Ha-ha. Everything should be fine now,” the Doctor said.

“So no more swearing?” Clara smiled as she sidled up to his side as he began to set coordinates into the console.

“For you, maybe. The TARDIS matrix won’t translate High Gallifreyan so I can swear whenever I like. Dead sneaky, eh?”

She punched his arm, playfully. “Well, just as long as you don’t _really_ think I’m a ‘scullion.’”

“Clara, I’ll have none of that language aboard my ship!” the Doctor said, his eyes dancing.

“One question, though. What did you say to me just now?”

“Pardon?”

“In Swedish. You said something. Were you poking fun at my shoes again?”

“Well, it doesn’t really matter whether we speak the same language or not. Some things cross language barriers, you know.”

“So?”

“So, I said, ‘You have beautiful eyes.’”

Clara aimed said orbs in the Doctor’s direction, giving him the look that she’d been giving him a lot lately. And she smiled and rested her head against his arm. She smiled; no reply necessary, in any language.

“So where to next, boss?” the Doctor said.

“Surprise me.”

**Author's Note:**

> The Swedish phrase was created using the translation function of Google. My apologies if the translation is erroneous. The Japanese phrase is listed on a number of websites as meaning "you bastard" or stronger insults. If it's being used inappropriately, please let me know and I will find something to replace it with.
> 
> Ullo John Got a New Motor Part 4 by Alexei Sayle is real. Don't listen to it with the kids around. Coincidentally, Peter Capaldi co-starred with Sayle on one of his comedy shows for a while.
> 
> Scullion comes from Peter having recently given a reading of an historical letter that includes this old term. Catastro...uh...etc. is taken from his movie In the Loop, of course.
> 
> "Fart-catcher" comes from "Who Cut the Cheese: The Cultural History of the Fart" by Jim Dawson. Yes, it's a real book. As is its sequel: "Blame it On the Dog". You can't make this stuff up.
> 
> Dillweed isn't actually a swear. It comes from the old Beavis and Butthead cartoon show.


End file.
